Exclusive: Jay McCarroll Dishes On The Project Runway Finale

Jay McCarroll knows a thing or two about winning Project Runway...because he was the very first person to ever do it. I rang him up this morning to chat about last night's finale: the good, the bad, the ugly, the person he would have wanted to win if it were a personality contest. Read on to see if thinks the right person took home the prize, after the jump.

"Right now I'm sitting in Whole Foods having breakfast and I'm dressed like a rolling dervish!" Jay told me when I got him on the phone a few minutes ago. "My friend brought me one of those Fez hats from Turkey and I love it!" Ah, Jay. He was as loved for his kooky head wear as he was for his innovative designs during the first season of Project Runway, when he became the clear frontrunner with a dress that resembled the Chrysler Building. Five years later, he's got a fabric line in the works for Free Spirit Fabrics (freespiritfabrics.com), a clothing line for QVC, and a documentary hitting theaters in the spring. But my favorite acid-tongued designer managed to spare me a few minutes to talk about last night's finale.

STF: So, do you think Leanne deserved to win?

*JMC: Oh, definitely. Her collection was amazing. Good balance, clean, I'd call it intelligent. And she seems like a nice person. *

JMC: She's leaving Portland, apparently, to move to New York, to get completely kicked down to curb. I feel like I wasted time moving to New York. As long as there are airplanes and FedEx, you can work from anywhere. You can see in her work that she loves nature and she's an earthy Portland girl. I say be a star in Portland!

STF: What about a few months down the line, when some of the buzz has died down?

JMC: Considering how obsessed everyone still is with Christian, she's going to get lost in the shuffle, which is to her advantage. Christian has almost become like a character, so she can just sort of fly under the radar and be like an Erin Fetherston type.

STF: What did you think of the collections from the other two finalists?

JMC: Korto's was nice, but I kind of wish it had more of those African references. The color palette was pretty, but there were too many plain old green dresses. It would have been nice to have had some rusts in there, some citron-y colors.